Saying how you feel is different than saying what you think.

That's what I'm learning lately.

Until recently, I've always told people about my thoughts. I experience a feeling. Then I examine my thoughts. Then I talk about how my thoughts are connected to the feeling. But I'm not really talking about the feeling itself.

I've lived a lot of my life with the idea that feelings are caused by what happens to me. If someone does something I don't like, then I feel uncomfortable or angry or frustrated.

So then I tell someone that what they did was wrong because it resulted in me feeling badly. And that doesn't usually go over well with people. So. When I tell people just a simple emotion that I'm feeling, the outcome is different.

For example, if I open with, "You did 'x' and I'm angry about that," then people get defensive. It's not the words that I use. It's an attitude: the attitude of "you were wrong to do 'x'."

If I say, "I'm angry," then I'm not starting the conversation with a judgment. And then people around me can respond sympathetically, which allows me to focus on my feelings, instead of on what the other person did.